Dominicus Germanus de Silesia (1588–1670) was a German priest and missionary. Born in Schurgast (present-day Skorogoszcz, Poland), he entered the Franciscan order in 1624 and devoted himself to learning Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. In 1630 he went to Palestine as a pastor, where he continued with his language studies. In 1635 he returned to Rome where he joined the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda de Fide (Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith). In 1636 he became a teacher at the Mission of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, and ...

Shuo wen jie zi (Explaining and analyzing characters), often abridged as Shuo wen, was compiled by Xu Shen (circa 58−circa 147), a Confucian scholar and linguist of the Eastern Han dynasty. This is the first Chinese dictionary to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components, called bu shou (radicals), and to analyze the form, meaning, and pronunciation of each character, using the liu shu (six categories of Chinese characters) theory, to give the rationale behind them, as well as their interrelation. It is the forerunner of ...

This work, published in Mexico City in 1611, is the first edition of the most important and most frequently reprinted Spanish work on Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. It contains both a Spanish-Nahuatl (pages 1-100) and a Nahuatl-Spanish (pages 101-160) dictionary, in which the Nahuatl words are spelled out phonetically. Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, was written with a pictographic script. About 1.5 million people in Mexico still speak dialects of Nahuatl that are descended from the language spoken by the Aztecs.

Transcribed in 1805, this manuscript is comprised of
excerpts from al-Kulliyyat, a dictionary of terminology and language
differences compiled by Abu l’Baqa al-Husseini al-Kafawi al-Hanafi (died 1683
[1094 AH]). The manuscript is from the Bašagić Collection of Islamic
Manuscripts in the University Library of Bratislava, Slovakia, which was
inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997. Safvet beg
Bašagić (1870-1934) was a Bosnian scholar, poet, journalist, and museum
director who assembled a collection of 284 manuscript volumes and 365 print
volumes that reflect the development of ...

This manuscript, by an unknown author probably writing at one or several Catholic missions in the 18th century, was found at the College for the Propagation of the Faith in Popayán, New Granada (the Spanish viceroyalty that comprised all or parts of present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela). It consists of 103 pages, most of which are taken up by a glossary of words in the Siona indigenous language with their Spanish equivalents. This part of the work is organized in columns, with the Siona words on the left and ...

This manuscript is a glossary with prayers, confessions, and sermons in the Chibcha language. It was compiled by an unknown hand, most likely in the mid-16th century (as suggested by the style of handwriting). The work was used by missionaries in the evangelization of the Muisca, the Chibcha-speaking people who lived in the central highlands of New Granada. The Spanish learned early in their colonial role that to accomplish their religious and other objectives they needed to communicate with the people in their native languages. As early as 1580 the ...

This 1790 manuscript contains a grammar and partial glossary of the Saliba language, compiled by an unknown writer in San Miguel del Macuco (present-day Orocué, Colombia), and used by Jesuit missionaries. A note on the manuscript reads: “Under the Royal Order of our Catholic Monarch Charles IV, God preserve him, for demanding the greater learning and intelligence of the dictionary." The manuscript also includes a letter addressed to Charles IV by Friar Clement of Saint Xavier, in which the friar states that he has requested the Saliba language dictionary recommended ...

Arte y bocabulario de la lengua achagua: Doctrina christiana, confessionario de uno y otro sexo e instrucción de cathecumenos (The art and vocabulary of the Achagua language: Christian doctrine, the confession of both sexes, and instruction in the catechism) attests to the linguistic effort undertaken by the Jesuit missionaries in the borderlands of present-day Colombia and Venezuela. As its long title explains, this small manuscript volume, written in beautiful calligraphy and now preserved in the National Library of Colombia, contains several items: a grammar of the Achagua language, an extensive ...

Lucerna yndyca (A guiding light to the Indians) is a manuscript dating from 1715–22 containing a Castilian–Quechua dictionary and selections of the Gospels translated from Latin into Quechua, the predominant Andean language at the time of the Spanish conquest. The text is annotated with comments by the author, Esteban Sancho de Melgar y Santa Cruz. Melgar, a late-17th century academic, is known for his work Arte de la Lengua General de Inga Llamada Qquechhua (The art of the general language called Quechua) published in Lima in 1691. This ...